Close to Home
by Javanyet
Summary: A new case brings work home in a big way. Chapter 5 up at last. The good news is Randy's found. The bad news is his story doesn't please everyone. Please review, it helps alot with additional chapters.
1. Long night

Mike Logan was communing with Ed McBain when the phone rang just after 11pm. It was Wednesday and Merry was filling in for one of her bouncers at the club. She hadn't done that gig for a while, having moved into management, bookkeeping, and general operations at the bar as the owner gradually backed out of day-to-day business and concentrated on a new bar he'd just opened across town. In fact she'd talked more often lately about leaving the bar business entirely. Some of the community services stuff she'd heard of through Mike's work was beginning to interest her, "I'd like to help drive something that does a little more than help people get drunk and laid," she'd told him recently. But until she chose a new direction The Death of Me was Merry's to drive, though occasionally she picked up the slack at the door or behind the bar if necessary. "Keeps me among the little people," she cracked before going to work tonight. Wednesdays were slow, not much trouble to deal with if she'd become rusty at her old trade.

"Yeah," Mike muttered distractedly into the phone. At this hour it could be only one of two callers: someone from the precinct calling him and Briscoe in for a hot case, or Merry telling him she'd be late. Neither call was welcome. This time it was Van Buren. Shit.

"We got a call from the West side, Mike. I've already called Lennie. Assault, two female victims, one on the edge."

Odd that it was the captain and not Profaci calling with the pain-in-the-ass news. Mike was looking forward to some serious down time with his wife of five-and-something years; in fact he'd cashed in some recent overtime to get Thursday off.

"Lemme leave a note for the little woman, and I'll be there in a few."

"I need you to report to the scene, Lennie's already on his way." A pause. "Mike, the 911 came in from The Death of Me."

"What?" He dropped the book and sat at attention. Merry was working with Nicole, the weeknight bartender, and just a barback and a waitress tonight. She and Nicole would be closing up alone, probably about now since weeknights were slow. _Shit_. He was into his jacket and grabbing his gun and badge while shouting into the phone, "_Talk_ to me!"

"That's all I know. Somebody jumped one woman outside the back door of the club, her coworker tried to intervene. Both being transported to Bellevue, one's not looking good."

"_Who_?_"_

"I don't know, just meet Lennie there and the uniforms will fill you in." She thought she should say more, but what? Logan was gone anyway by then, he didn't even switch off the cordless as he slammed out the door, dropping it to let the batteries bleed out their power on the carpet.

The ambulances had left by the time Mike's car screamed to a stop in front of the bar Merry had been working at since before they'd met. Crime scene tape across the door, but nobody out front. He ducked under and ran inside hollering "Lennie!"

His partner beckoned him through the back door into the alley. "Mike, Merry's banged up a little but she'll be okay. Looks like someone went for the bartender, Nicole Williams, and Merry dove in." Briscoe indicated a punky-looking kid in leather and blue jeans talking to a uniform ten feet away. "James Dean here was rummaging for empties when he heard the noise, the assailant took off when he saw him coming. The kid ran into the bar and called 911."

Mike strode over to "James Dean". "Did you get a look at the guy who did it?"

The kid shrugged. "Man, it's dark, y'know? He just split." Recognizing the menace in the detective's eyes he furrowed his brow in concentration. "Okay, okay, maybe a few years older than me, like 22, 23, or something. White guy. Dark hair, I think. Not blond, anyway. T shirt, jeans, it's all I saw, I swear."

"You get that?" Mike barked at the female officer taking notes.

"Yeah, detective, I even got the big words."

Lennie appeared at Mike's shoulder. "Let's go to Bellevue." As if slapped out of a daydream, Mike dashed back through the bar and to his car. Lennie caught up and grabbed his arm, stepping back when his partner whipped around abruptly with a mad look in his eye.

"Come on, I'll drive, one of the uniforms'll bring your car to the precinct."

* * *

Logan barreled through the ER waving his badge. "Merry Logan, where is she?" In his panic he'd forgotten she used her maiden name most of the time. The startled staff looked at each other in puzzlement. "_MERRY LOGAN_," he repeated at high volume, slapping a hand on nurse's station desk. "Two assault victims just came in, where the hell are they?" Lennie was there again, trying to slow him down.

"Two women, from a bar on the West side," Lennie elaborated as his partner fumed, and the nurse at the computer offered "We have a Meredith A. Ryan in exam two…"

As Mike broke for the treatment area the nurse went after him, "Detective you can't go in there." He turned on her with a look that stopped her cold.

"Try and stop me."

He took off again as Lennie informed the shaken nurse, "Detective Logan is Ms. Ryan's husband." He showed his badge though by then it wasn't necessary. "I'm Detective Briscoe. This is our case, and I'll need to talk to whoever is treating the other victim."

Mike burst into the treatment room, slamming the door open with enough force to send a stack of supplies cascading to the floor. Merry was sitting on the treatment table; the intern cleaning blood off of her face jumped so severely he dropped the gauze pad he was using.

"Ow! Shit, watch it!" Merry protested. She sounded drunk or something, then Mike came in for a closer look and saw the swelling around one side of her mouth. Bloody lip, puffing eye, scrapes and contusions on her jaw. Both hands were bagged and there was more gauze and tape on her right forearm.

The intern had recovered and finished blotting the scrapes on Merry's face. Mike held his breath and forced himself to stand still for the minute or two it took for the guy to finish up. Then he approached Merry warily, not sure what state she was in. He indicated her baggie-wrapped hands. "Factory fresh, huh." It was a hopelessly lame attempt to lighten up.

"I gouged the hell outta him, I got enough under my nails to clone three new guys."

"I'm through for now," the intern said. "I'll send someone in to collect evidence."

"My partner will take it when it's finished," Mike told him as the intern ran to another treatment room. He went to Merry, tipped her face up, grimacing at the damage.

"How much does it hurt?"

"A shitload." She nodded toward the diamond-and-emerald eternity ring that lay in an instrument tray, the one Mike had gone deep into hock to buy her for their fifth anniversary a few months ago. "They managed to get it off before my hand swelled up. No way I was gonna let 'em cut it." Mike took it from the tray and slipped it in his pocket as he studied her face.

"I guess I got slammed pretty good, huh?" Merry asked, not quite able to keep the whimper out of her voice.

"Yeah but I can't wait to see the other guy." Another lame joke as his panic receded. "Can you tell me what happened?"

She nodded uncertainly then abruptly began to hyperventilate, covering her face with her bagged hands. "I dunno, I heard Nic screaming and I ran out back and he was on top of her just pounding and pounding, I don't think I thought at all, I just _jumped_, on him, you know, he threw me off and I hit him with something, and he left Nic and grabbed me," Merry ran out of breath and words so Mike just kissed the top of her head and rested his forehead there.

"I don't mind telling you I almost croaked on the ride here," he confessed. "I heard one hurt bad, one hurt worse, but nobody said who."

She pulled back then, frightened and insistent. "Where's Nic? How bad did he hurt her? Mikey, it was _crazy_, he just hit her and hit her with his fists, in the face and the head and what else I couldn't see. I thought that asshole was _gone_, she thought he'd left town."

He slowed her down by rubbing his hands over her shoulders. "Lennie's talking to the doctors to find out how she is. You recognized the guy?"

She nodded. "Nic's ex, Randy Walsh. She gave him the heave ho a few weeks ago, moved out of his place 'cause she was sick of his drugging and whoring and lazy-ass doing nothing but hanging with his low life friends."

"And he didn't take it real well."

"Are you kidding? Losing his meal ticket? She put up with his shit so long he figured it was permanent. He'd called her and called her and she told me she just erased the messages. Nic's not a low life, Mike, she's good people, she just got caught in a bad situation and finally got out. She made her choice, starting a whole new life, and this has to happen…" she trailed off and he hugged her against him again.

"You can give a statement once we get you taken care of, okay?"

A movement near the door caught his attention as a grim-faced Lennie Briscoe entered quietly. Mike's raised eyebrow was met with a frown and a terse shake of the head. Merry had noticed Lennie's entrance too, and though she hadn't seen his silent exchange with her husband, his sober demeanor said it all. She'd seen it before too many times at the end of any of Mike's long bad days not to know its meaning.

"Oh Lennie, no, not _now_," she looked helplessly up at Mike begging, "Mikey _no_, I tried so hard, I should've gone _sooner_," but he shook his head firmly.

"Baby, stop, this asshole almost did the same job on you, you couldn't have done any more than you did. It was probably too late by the time you even knew what was happening."

"Mike's right, honey, the trauma doc said the first blow to her head probably killed her, it was over from the start."

That just seemed to upset her more. "_No_, it's not _right_," she was trembling with rage and physical pain, and exhaustion. Grief was still too distant.

"She's just starting _over_, the bad stuff is supposed to be _over_..."

Briscoe exited discreetly as his partner tried to calm his wife. Mike kissed and hugged Merry, and wondered what else to do, until someone came in with the forensics kit to take evidence from her hands. He stepped back to let the lab tech unwrap the tape from the baggies, but jumped when Merry cried out.

"Sorry!" the tech said hastily. "I'm gonna call the doctor back in, okay?

Merry's right hand was swollen grotesquely, the left much less so, and both sets of knuckles were bruised and scraped raw. When the tech went to get a doctor Mike returned to her and gently took her right wrist to get a closer look.

"You must've clocked him good. Looks like you busted something here."

Merry breathed rapidly through the pain. "I don't remember. I didn't notice until now. Shit it _hurts_." The lab tech re-entered with the third doctor she'd seen so far, who took her hand from Mike and turned it this way and that as Merry gritted her teeth.

"Yup, this needs an x-ray." He looked at the left hand, in slightly better shape. "Might as well do this one too." The doctor looked Merry in the eye. "You up to getting those nails done?"

She grimaced but nodded. "Yeah. I didn't collect all this DNA to wimp out because it hurts a little." But Mike heard the tremble in her voice and saw the look in her eye. He moved to the other side of the table and slipped his arms around her waist.

"Right behind ya, baby. It'll be over quick."

Merry choked back a strangled whimper as the doctor scraped under her nails as carefully as he could, wiping each time on a separate piece of lab paper held out by the tech. Her husband whispered encouragement to her, "Almost done, you're doin' great, my woman here kicks ass guys, I'm only holding on so she doesn't mess you up," and it occurred absurdly to Merry that he sounded like some sort of bizarre labor coach. The left hand was worse than she expected, and when the doctor carefully gripped her right she tensed back against Mike. A spontaneous inspiration came to him; with one hand he turned her head to the side and leaned around to kiss her deeply, keeping it up until the doctor had finished with his collection of evidence. When both men let her go she was smiling weakly in spite of the tears running down her face.

The doctor signed off on the evidence bag and handed it to the tech along with the signed form. "Take this to the detective in the waiting room, and make sure he signs for it."

"You're too smart, detective," Merry complimented Mike somewhat shakily.

He shrugged. "Whatever works."

An orderly came and took Merry up to X-ray, and Mike rejoined Lennie in the ER waiting room.

"So how's she doing?"

"So-so. Her face is banged up and her right hand is probably broken." Briscoe whistled. "Yeah, she really tore loose on the perp. Plenty of DNA under the fingernails."

Lennie held up the evidence bag. "We'll get this to the lab toot-sweet and see who it matches."

"Merry said she recognized the guy. Nicole Williams' ex boyfriend, guy named Randy Walsh. Apparently Nicole broke up with him recently and he wasn't taking get lost for an answer."

"Abusive?"

"Merry says yeah, and a leech. A real prince."

"She's sure it was him?"

"She said so just now, but I didn't push it. I told her we'd take her statement later."

"She knows that her friend is dead, right?"

"Yeah, Lennie, you heard her."

"I was just wondering if it sunk in is all."

Mike handed Lennie back the notes he'd been looking over and explained, "It will. Two in the morning."

"You got it timed?"

Mike smiled ruefully. "Oh, yeah. It's Merry's Crisis Hour. Anything that's waiting to clobber her hits between two and three, guaranteed. I'll wake up alone and find her in the kitchen staring out the window."

"Well maybe they'll give her something that'll knock her out."

Logan frowned, anticipating a storm of emotions to come even as he suspected she'd find a way to keep it quiet. "Man, I hope so."

Lennie patted his shoulder. "Look, she's gonna be awhile. How about I run the notes and evidence back to the precinct and you call when you're through? I'll come back and get you."

"Yeah, that'll work." Mike smiled wearily. "Thanks, I need all the help I can get. I have a feeling it's gonna be a long night."

Briscoe shook his head sadly. "Too bad Nicole Williams had hers cut short. Call when you're ready." He left Mike standing in the near-empty waiting area.

At nearly1am Merry was ushered back into the waiting room, where Mike had nodded off. Slumped in her wheelchair, she was obviously under the influence of some painkiller or other.

"Detective," the nurse reached out and touched his shoulder. "You can take your wife home now."

He shook himself alert and jumped to his feet. Merry's right was hand wrapped up tight in several layers of ace wrap and a brace.

"Slight fractures in the index and middle fingers and a badly sprained wrist," the nurse explained. "We don't coat people with cement anymore. There's probably some minor cartilage damage too. She really must have walloped something good."

"Some_one_," Mike corrected, and lifted the wrapped-up hand to kiss it. "Poor li'l paw." Merry's left wrist and hand bore a lightweight ace bandage over some gauze and tape. The nurse told him it was just slightly sprained and scraped up.

"Hurts a lot," Merry whined, sounding very unlike herself. The nurse handed Mike a bottle of pills, a filled-in insurance form, and a prescription slip.

"Keep an eye on these, she'll probably need one at least every four hours for the next 24 or so."

"Will this mess complicate her arthritis?" he wanted to know. The nurse shrugged.

"I don't suppose it'll help, but you'll have to see later. Call the number on the care orders if you have any questions." Then she was gone about her business.

Merry leaned her head against Mike's stomach. "Can we go home now?" He knelt down to look in her bleary eyes.

"Sure." He kissed her for good measure. "Lennie's gonna come get us." He flipped open his cell and speed dialed. "Hey Lennie, we're all set. Merry's fixed as good as it's gonna get tonight."

When Lennie pulled up to the door some twenty minutes later Mike lifted Merry from the wheelchair and carried her out.

"No, you're tired, you don't have to," she protested vaguely.

"I'm a big boy, I'll be fine." He settled them both in the back seat. "To the precinct, James."

Briscoe laughed in spite of the situation. "How you doing, sweetheart?" he asked Merry.

"Dunno," she slurred. She was settled against Mike's side like melting jello.

"We'll be home soon," Mike told her as he kissed her head for maybe the hundredth time. Kisses he could do, and he figured not much else would help anyway. Suddenly Merry stirred a bit, struggling to lean forward and focus.

"How's Nic?" she asked with obvious distress. Silence from the two detectives, then Mike tightened his arms around her.

"Nic's gone, babe."

"Oh, yeah." She slumped back again.

"Hey, why don't I just run you guys home?" Briscoe suggested abruptly, "I'll send a couple uniforms with your car, okay?"

Mike nodded gratefully. The sooner they got home the better for everyone.

* * *

Mike got Merry tucked up in bed, her right hand propped up on a pile of pillows to try and keep the swelling (and pain) down. She'd taken another pain pill, or rather he'd fed it to her. She was drifting in a fog of pain and confusion as he got ready for bed.

"Where's my ring?" she asked suddenly.

"Right here, sweetheart, I'm putting it on the dresser, okay?" Mike made the ring sparkle under the light so she could see.

"'kay." She was so quiet as he slid into bed that Mike thought she was asleep until he heard a ragged sigh.

"What's going on in there?" he asked, leaning so close his lips touched her cheek.

"It hurts." There was a tremble in Merry's voice that Mike swore he could feel. Very gently he moved over to kiss first her right hand, then the left.

"It'll get better."

"I wasn't talking about my hands."

Mike lay on his side, as close as he could manage without jostling her. "Neither was I."

"I _really_ tried." It was barely a whisper.

"I know. I know you would've torn that bastard's head off if you could, you would've busted through that wall like Wonder Woman the minute you heard there was trouble. That's what you would've done, but you couldn't, you couldn't bust through the wall and you couldn't tear his head off. You're Wonder Woman inside, but the real world only lets you be Merry. I know you know it's not your fault, and you know I know that doesn't help worth shit. I love you, Merry Ann, I love you so much it hurts and it's the best I can do, like what you did was the best you could do. It sucks, but we're just stuck with it."

As minutes passed again Mike thought Merry had finally fallen asleep, helped along by the fat dose of pain drugs. He wasn't sure he'd be sleeping much himself. Dealing with the number, variation, and randomness of the crimes he confronted every day usually didn't leave him worrying overmuch about Merry's safety. If he knew violent death was frequent and random, he also knew she would be wiser to look both ways when crossing the street than over her shoulder for some attacker. Sure, her face replaced a vic's in his imagination now and then, but it was "what if" not "watch out". Nobody but another cop would realize how far out of left field tonight's fears came from. Shit. Exhaustion had dragged him near the point of sleep only an hour or so before daybreak when Merry's timid voice pulled him back to the surface.

"Mikey? You awake?"

"Yeah." He gave her a squeeze to prove it.

"Do you think she knew?" After a second's confused silence she added, "Nic, I mean. Do you think she knew?"

"Knew what?" He figured it was the drugs talking.

"You think she knew I was trying?" The words were weak, shaky.

Mike shut his eyes tight against the pain he couldn't reach because it wasn't his.

"Yeah babe, she knew. I bet it's the last thing she heard, you clocking that asshole to make him stop."

"I really wish I knew." She started sobbing quietly and rolled closer against Mike, not caring about her hands.

"Sssh, baby, I know for both of us." As he rubbed her back and kissed her again and again, the intensity of his relief staggered him. He'd met Nicole once or twice and liked her, she seemed smart and capable and according to Merry she never whined about hard times, she just worked to make her life better and tonight, against all right and fairness, she got killed for it.

Mike Logan was too long a lapsed Catholic to believe that one life was "chosen" to end tonight, and one wasn't. But oh god, if it had to be one of them...he tried to sort out what rushed him as he considered it but he'd never be able to choose whether it was gratitude or guilt, not if you put a gun to his head and cocked the hammer.


	2. Secrets

"Mike, I think it would be better for Lennie and me to take the statement. You're a little too close to this."

"What, you're afraid it won't be by the book?" Mike's rage to arrest Randy Walsh was fueled by lack of sleep and the need to do something, anything, that might lessen the empty look on Merry's face. He figured arresting the guy was the best he could do.

"I'm not _afraid_ of anything, detective," Lt. Van Buren countered, then softened her attitude and voice to add, "Look, Mike, I think it'll be easier for Merry to provide a clear account if she doesn't have those waves of concern to surf through. And yes, having the husband of a witness participate in taking her statement could lead to trouble down the road." Logan's set jaw told her he wasn't inclined to budge. "Don't make me have to pull rank, detective. A young woman was beaten to death and I don't intend to let the killer squeak by because you couldn't let go of your wife's hand for an hour. Now go with Profaci and see what you can canvass from the neighborhood. Eleven o'clock at night is pretty early for everyone within earshot to have been asleep."

Mike nodded, grudgingly. "Okay, okay. I know, I'll thank you for this later." He even managed a smirk. "Maybe Profaci will let me hold _his_ hand."

Van Buren looked relieved. "Don't ask, don't tell. Just see if you can find someone else who can corroborate the description, and then bring Walsh in for a lineup."

* * *

"I'd just finished locking the safe. I mean, the worst part of the night, any night, is doing the damn cash-out. Even on a slow night it can be hard to get that last dime to add up. Hell, sometimes it's even harder than a busy night."

Briscoe and Van Buren exchanged a look, and Lennie switched off the recorder.

"What?" Merry played confused. "Y'know, this reminds me of when I first came here… before your time. Sat right here giving a statement, except that time it was me who was the suspect."

"Merry." The look on Lennie's face was unmistakable. It said _I understand_, but it also said _cut to the chase_. "We need to know what happened, after you locked the safe. I know you probably didn't get much sleep and your hands hurt like hell, but the sooner we can get a good picture of things the sooner we can pick up who did this. Okay?" He turned on the recorder again.

Merry stared at the table between them, then looked him in the eye and nodded. "Yeah. I guess I'm kind of dodging and weaving. It's not as if it hasn't replaying in my head nonstop… I'd just locked the safe, and then the office door. My stuff was on the bar, and I was just about to yell out back for Nic to bust a move." She paused and fixed her eyes on the table again. It was easier to talk without having to look at the sympathetic, expectant faces of Lennie and the lieutenant. _We're sorry for your loss._ It was as natural to their business as "have a nice day" was to a bank teller.

"I heard… I heard her, Nic, Nicole. I heard her scream."

"Did you hear any other voices? Was she arguing with anyone?" Van Buren asked.

"No. No words. She just screamed. Not surprise, or fear, but… something else. The kind of sound you make when you figure it's your last chance to make one."

"You sure she didn't scream a name, maybe her assailant's name?"

Merry cast a desperate glance at Briscoe. He knew she was holding something back, but didn't comment.

"No, that's wrong," she shrugged, looked around the room, sucked in a breath. "She did scream a name."

"What did it sound like?" Lennie encouraged. The answer wasn't what he was hoping for.

"It 'sounded' like my name. My name was the last word she said." She corrected herself in a trembling voice. "Screamed." All at once she just wanted this to be over, and Merry let the rest rush out unprompted like air from a balloon with barely a breath between sentences, directing the whole account to Van Buren.

"I ran into the alley and saw this guy on top of her, at first I thought he was trying to rape her, then I just saw his fist up and down, up and down, so fast it was a blur, it takes longer to tell than it took to happen, and I don't think I yelled or anything, I just jumped on his back and grabbed his face, pulled back to try to pull him off her... even when he was losing his balance, when I was pounding on his head and face, he kept hold of Nic with one hand and kept swinging with the other, like beating on her was more important than anything... we both fell sideways, I was still hanging on around his face, and I grabbed a chunk of something, maybe a piece of a brick or something, and I cracked him with it, I don't know where it connected but I couldn't have hurt him too bad, he threw me off and when he stood up and came for me where I was still on the ground I saw who it was, Randy Walsh, there was just enough light from over the back door of the bar I could see... he'd picked her up more than once after a shift and I knew what he looked like, but last night he looked _crazy_, cracked out or something, like some animal that had its prey taken away and he pulled me up and hit me a couple of times, but he kept looking over where Nicole was, like he had something to finish and I kept scratching his hands and face and pounding his head but it's like he barely noticed, then he just dropped me and I guess I passed out because next I knew I was being wheeled to an ambulance and Lennie was yelling at the EMT's to hurry the hell up." She stopped then, breathing heavily as if she'd just run a great distance.

Briscoe and Van Buren gave her a minute to gather herself, then Van Buren asked, "Did you see anyone else around? Anybody else who might have seen what happened? The 911 call came from a kid who was trolling the alley, did you see him at all? Do you know how much he saw?" She knew the i.d. was shaky since it was all happening so fast, and any decent lawyer would say it was an assumption based on hearsay about a lousy relationship.

"I thought he showed up after Randy took off. That's what Mike told me the kid told the cops at the scene."

"Witnesses aren't always complete about what they witness," Lennie reminded her. Of course she knew that by now, cop's wife and all, she felt really stupid not to have figured that already.

"Right, you're right." By reflex Merry ran her right hand over her face, and flinched at the sudden pain.

Gauging her failing resources, Van Buren offered, "Can we get you something to drink, coffee, anything? Maybe it'd be a good idea to take a break," she looked at Briscoe, who seemed to agree, but Merry shook her head.

"I don't think I can stand to drag this out longer than I have to, okay? You tell me what else you need from me and we can do it right now. No, I don't remember seeing or hearing anyone else. I honestly don't remember hearing anything at _all…_ it's like I went deaf after… well, after I went outside, you know? I'm sorry, I just can't remember…"

"Hey," Lennie interrupted, "you had other priorities at the time." He switched off the recorder again. "Lieutenant, it sounds like this is enough for now," he refocused on Merry, "More details tend to come up on their own when you're not trying so hard."

Merry knew that too. What she knew because of who she was married to might be making things a little easier in terms of procedure and explanations, but it wasn't working the same way for her. She almost wished she had a husband who was clueless enough about police work that he'd just be able to wait (albeit as impatiently as any civilian might) without spinning the wheels in his head until the gears stripped.

"Thank you for coming in," Van Buren was saying as the three of them got up from the table. "We're very,"

"Sorry for my loss, I know," Merry finished for her. It wasn't like she and Nicole were best friends, she was a nice kid who worked at the bar and Merry liked her. But it sounded the same. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way, it's just…" She took a shuddering breath, the only kind she seemed capable of since last night. Before she could struggle further Van Buren put a hand on her shoulder.

"It's okay, Merry. Lame cop habits are all we have to fall back on , especially when it's one of our own."

As always that concept took Merry by surprise. Even after five years, more if she counted the time before she married Mike, she still never quite thought of herself as "one of our own".

"Thanks, Lieutenant, really, it means a lot you saying it like that."

The lieutenant returned to her office and Lennie brought Merry back to his and Mike's desks. "You can wait here until Mike gets back, but I'm not sure when that'll be. Depends on what he and Profaci turn up."

She hadn't sat down. "If it's okay, I think I'd rather go home." She braced herself for a concerned response, the one that said he was worried about her being on her own when she was so upset. But he just nodded.

"Need some downtime alone?"

She misread him, thinking he agreed Mike was being too overprotective. "Jesus, Lennie, he watches me like I'm gonna burst into flames any minute or something. It's not _good_ for him, how can he concentrate and do his job when he's all the time scrutinizing. He needs to be looking for clues out there, not trying to fine 'em at home."

Lennie picked up the phone to call Van Buren in her office and tell her he was giving Merry a lift home. That done, he draped an arm around her shoulders as they walked to the stairs.

"It might have escaped your notice, but you came close to becoming past tense last night," he reminded her. "I think it might help loosen my partner's mainspring if you check in with the company sounding board. Just so Mike knows you're not holding it in as a favor, to him." Merry tried to protest as she got in the car, but Briscoe wasn't having any. "Don't bullshit a bullshitter, Meredith Ann," he announced flatly as he slid behind the wheel. Instead of starting the car he turned to face her. "Take it from a three time loser, cops and marriage are a hard mix. Add secrets, and you got poison. Mike's not so good at secrets, but we both know you're different. I'm telling you now it's not worth it, not to you and not to Mike. Go see Skoda, for whatever baggage you don't want to unpack at home. It'll matter less to Mike that you're not unloading on him than if you weren't unloading at all." She looked at him for a minute, then looked away. Lennie could go from zero to mindreader at the most inconvenient times. "Sweetheart, please. I can't keep you _both_ in line." She turned back to him then, offering an exhausted smile.

"Okay, Detective. God knows I don't want to make your job more challenging. I'll call Skoda."

"Good girl," Lennie nodded as he started the car and pulled out of the garage. "With people going crazy all over Manhattan it's a sin to waste a good health plan."


	3. Any normal person

There were times when Lou Ashby – "Louie" to everyone but total strangers – wished mightily he'd gone into another line of business.

An ice cream parlor, maybe, a hardware store. Maybe even a McDonald's franchise. Anything at all but a bar. Make that _two_ bars. The name of his first one should have tipped him off.

"'The Death of Me', you jackass, any _normal_ person would have gotten the point," his wife Marlene told him just before she left him. For good. That was a few years back. But oh no, not only did he he not get the point and buy the not-quite-seedy place, six months ago he picked up another, classier joint. Class can make more money than it costs once it's set up, but not-quite-seedy is like a habitual gambler: in the long run it only breaks even. So last month he started to think, maybe he should borrow from Peter to pay Paul. He'd actually been hoping that Paul would be able to _lend_ to Peter. Any normal person, Marlene would be pleased to remind him, would _sell_ Peter to pay Paul. Louie's cousin Artie – the genius, the one who managed to stay one step ahead of the shylocks – had a better idea.

There were times, fleeting and generally ignored, when Louie really wished he could be Any Normal Person. But not that night. That night, he said, "So what did you have in mind?"

Insurance was what Artie had in mind. Not arson, not bombing, nothing that would get anyone hurt. Burglary, maybe just enough vandalism to make it look real without breaking the already splintered bank. Artie said he knew this kid, out of work, recently out of his apartment. Looking for any way to make a few bucks. Artie bet he'd be up for it. And where did he _meet_ this kid, Louie wanted to know.

"At your bar, stupid."

A little voice had started yelling in Louie's head, "Are you fucking _nuts_?" but as usual the lights were on and Any Normal Person wasn't home.

So Louie left Artie to set it up. Come by just after closing on a slow night; the alley door wouldn't stand up to much abuse. And the safe wasn't much of a safe… one of those minor league ones with the lock set onto the front instead of built in. A few hard whacks with a cold chisel and a mallet would take care of it. Friday was bank day, and any day near midweek would have the previous Saturday's take along with whatever came in during the week. Sometimes Louie made a night deposit on Mondays, sometimes not. This time would be not. Keep it simple, stupid, that's what Artie said. Low-key, small-time, a few thousand from the safe that would be covered by insurance and would give Louie a little something extra to improve the sound system at his new place, Skyline, which was being styled as a dance club for the young business set.

Except that This Kid showed up early, and caught his weeknight bartender putting out the trash. Artie said he must have freaked and beat the crap out of her. To death. And his manager got her ass kicked too. Louie wasn't a cold hearted bastard at heart, he thought Nicole was a smart, spunky girl, and he depended on Merry to run that place as if it were her own. Nobody was supposed to get hurt. Nobody was supposed to be _there_. Now that smart spunky girl was dead, and Merry Ryan had enough of This Kid left under her fingernails, according to the paper, that the cops could i.d. him as the killer. If they ever found him. Of course he was also the freelance insurance fraud specialist Louie had hired for just 10 percent of whatever was in the safe, what a bargain. You get what you pay for, Marlene was screaming in his head. Louie was honestly sick over the whole thing, good god he never in the world imagined anyone would get hurt let alone _killed_, but under the sick was scared. Scared like he'd never felt before, accessory-before-the-fact-wise.

Yeah, there were times when Lou Ashby wished he'd gone into another business. Like the times he really _was_ robbed. And the time when Merry got busted because Joey, who would never be confused with Any Normal Person, was more interested in being clever than smart. But hey, that one worked out okay. Joey served five and got out on parole and into state-subsidized higher education. And Merry was happily married to one of the cops who'd led her out of the bar in cuffs. Go figure.

All things considered, though, Lou Ashby had never wished he'd gone into another line of business quite as mightily as he did tonight. The Death of Me was closed, back door intact and money safely locked up. His bartender was dead, for christsake, and his manager laid up with the hands she'd busted trying to save her employee, nails freshly cleaned of the evidence that could easily give This Kid a free four-by-six apartment at Ossining with Artie and Louie for neighbors.

And not even Any Normal Person could save his ass this time. Marlene would _love_ it.


	4. Laid to rest

The funeral was small but very well appointed; a gorgeous rosewood casket, silver-framed photos of Nicole and various friends and coworkers set up on each side of its silk-draped bier. Yellow roses, Nicole's favorite, filled vases throughout the church. The bar staff had taken up a collection for a flower arrangement, and Louie put himself (deeper) into hock paying for the rest. Louie, of course, had his own compelling personal reasons for doing so. Nicole's father flew in from Chicago where he'd moved after his wife, Nicole's mother, had died of breast cancer some years before. Nicole had always been the independent sort, so she stayed put in the city when her father left. Now for the first time in five years Jim Williams returned to New York to bury his only child, the last member of his family and last remaining tie to what had made it feel like home.

It wouldn't have been hard for Merry to pick Williams out of the group of mourners even if he hadn't delivered the simple, heartbreaking eulogy. He was the only one she'd never met, and the resemblance between father and daughter was unmistakable. In spite of the strangers (to him) offering faltering expressions of sympathy and support after the service, he looked to Merry like a man in a vacuum.

"I gotta go say something," Merry told Mike as they were filing out of the church she'd never seen before and nobody else attended regularly.

Mike tightened his arm around her and bent to peer into her eyes. "You want me to come with you?" She nodded so he took her mostly-healed left hand and followed her to where Jenna stood talking quietly with Nicole's father in the still-chilly March sunshine outside. She reached out to grasp Merry's arm when she and Mike approached.

"Mr. Williams, this is Merry Ryan, and her husband Mike Logan. Merry's the bar manager, she was working with Nic on the night," she trailed off, not needing to complete the sentence.

"Yes, Nickie mentioned you, she said you were a good manager and fun to work with," he reached out to shake her hand but was stopped by the sight of the soft cast that wrapped it. It seemed to jar his memory, and he looked her in the eye.

"You tried to help my daughter, didn't you? The police told me." He took her right wrist gently in both hands. "Thank you, I'm so glad she wasn't alone when it happened."

Jenna put a hand on Merry's shoulder. "We kind of try to watch out for each other, don't we Mer?"

Merry barely managed a whisper, "I _really_ tried, I'm so sorry, Mr. Williams, I just couldn't…" her voice faded and she just shook her head. Mike slipped his arms around her waist and reassured her, "We know you did, baby, Nic knew it too." Williams stepped closer and laid a fatherly hand alongside Merry's head.

"Please, you mustn't blame yourself." He stepped back and managed a smile. "Nickie didn't talk a lot about the work she did, she thought I was disappointed she wound up working in a bar instead of finishing college. But she _did_ talk about the people she worked with, whom she was very attached to," he nodded toward Jenna, "and that this lady Merry was a little crazy about having _everything_ perfect. Don't worry, she also said you were pretty good at not acting out on everyone else." Nicole had started school as a psych major, and dropped out when she got involved with Randy Walsh. Jim Williams continued, lifting Merry's wrapped right hand, "Anytime you're feeling doubtful, you just look at this hand to remind yourself that you did what you could, all right?"

He looked at her so steadily, Merry had to nod. "Okay. Thanks. It's just that I wish,"

Nicole's dad smiled sadly. "I know. So do I." He turned his attention to Mike, shaking his hand. "Detective Logan, Nickie said that Merry was married to a 'big handsome cop' but I guess I didn't make the connection. You and Detective Briscoe have been very kind." Lennie had called to notify Williams of his daughter's death, and together with Mike had taken him to the morgue to see her and had interviewed him regarding Nicole's relationship with Randy Walsh.

Mike shrugged a little awkwardly. "Keeping it professional can be a balancing act. I met Nic a couple of times, she seemed like a smart girl, very determined to get on with her life. Merry told me about her, too. We're gonna get the guy that did this, Mr. Williams." He paused. "Now I'm talking like a cop, I guess."

Jenna broke the silence that followed. "Louie's set up a little something back at the bar for anyone who wants to come. Coffee, sandwiches, whatever."

Williams looked around for a minute. "You know I expected I'd see him… you said he'd paid for all of this and I'd like to thank him. I'm a little ashamed I couldn't have afforded it myself, I'm still paying off my wife's medical expenses."

Merry was grateful to see Jenna take charge, taking Williams' arm, "I'll see to it that you meet him. I know he was here, I saw him near the back." She looked questioningly at Merry.

"Yeah, it's weird," she agreed. "He's kind of laying low. Well he can be a little odd about how he deals with his employees. One minute he's family, the next he's the Boss with a capital B, you know? How long are you in town, Mr. Williams? Will you come to the bar for some coffee? I warn you, bartender coffee isn't for sissies."

Mike breathed a sigh of relief to hear the touch of humor returning to his wife's voice. He knew she'd talked to Skoda a couple of times since the murder and it seemed to be helping her sort out her stubborn belief she could/should have done more. God bless his pushy partner too, who right now was leaning on Van Buren to lean on Kincaid to lean on McCoy to lean on a judge for a court order for a blood sample from Randy Walsh without first having to come up with a crowd of witnesses to place him in the alley that night. Logan hated it when they needed _more_ evidence to give them the right to use the evidence they already had, that hadn't required a warrant to get in the first place. Fourth Amendment my ass, he thought. He'd be happy to break the asshole's nose and present his bloody knuckles to the lab. As soon as they could track down the asshole, that is. The trouble with rats is that it was so easy for them to disappear right under your nose.

"I'll be here for, well it's kind of open ended at the moment," Williams explained. "Jenna has kindly offered her spare room to me. I'd like to stay for a little while anyway, to see how the investigation goes. No pressure, detective," he assured Mike.

"My lieutenant will take care of _that_ part for you," Mike said, "Whenever you decide to go home, we'll keep you informed." He wasn't crazy about family members hovering around an investigation; even if they kept their distance it could mean a lot of wear and tear on everyone.

"I'm sure you will. Well, why don't we go back to the bar, then, and you can introduce me to your kind employer." None of them knew, of course, that Louie the Kind Employer was at that moment frantically calling Artie from his office in the bar, to see if he'd tracked down that psycho Walsh kid. Between the fear and the guilt Louie was feeling the strain, but his inner weasel was still going strong.

"Okay, Mr. Williams, we'll see you there." Merry looked up at Mike. "That okay?"

"Sure." Lately just about anything she wanted was okay, up to and including the Holy Grail.

Nicole's father chided gently, "Call me Jim, please. We'll see you there shortly."

Jenna and Merry hugged tight for a minute or two as the men watched in silence. "You take good care of her," Jenna directed Mike sternly (and unnecessarily) before taking Jim's arm again and walking him to her car. She may not have been aware of it, but Jim Williams was finding a great comfort in the attentiveness of his daughter's friend. The family feeling that Nicole had expressed for her coworkers was managing to extend a little to this man who had just lost the last of his own.

As he and Merry watched them go Mike asked, "You okay?" He wondered vaguely if he'd reached the million mark yet with that question. Merry leaned into him and smiled up into his face, albeit still weakly.

"Getting there." She raised her right hand, "Kiss my boo-boo again, huh?"

"You bet." He smooched the offered "paw", then held it to his face as he stared down at Merry with haunted eyes.

"I'm okay," she promised him. She knew he'd had a few bad dreams, had been attending her funeral in his sleep instead of this one. She'd sat up with him a couple of nights. There was a cop/spouse support group for times like these, but that would be too big a leap for them both. For now she just kept watch, and checked in like he did with her.

"Yeah, I know." Her gaze didn't waver. "I _know_, okay? C'mon, Dr. Freud, let's go drink bartender coffee. After surviving Profaci's poison every morning, it's gonna taste like champagne."

* * *

"Relax, Louie, the kid came to me looking for money to get away. I gave him five hundred, that should take him far enough."

Louie clamped a hand over his eyes and rocked back and forth in his chair, holding up the phone receiver as if asking for god's help with his moron cousin. "You fucking moron," Louie moaned, "you know who this kid is? He's my dead bartender's ex-boyfriend, that's who. He never planned to rob the safe, he just wanted a chance to beat on his ex with no witnesses, except her and Merry and Jenna always kept quiet about Nic's schedule, and they made sure it was never the same exact thing twice. She was staying with Jenna so he didn't know where she was, and he didn't dare come sniffing around the bar because of a restraining order. And now that I know who he is I can tell you for sure he didn't buy no goddamn ticket outta town with your 'largesse', he bought himself a nice pile of pipe candy and a coupla whores. And I guarantee he didn't have to go farther than a few blocks for that."

There was silence on the other end of the phone, then, "Shit, do you think he'll try to put the squeeze on us for more?"

Louie almost hung up, but not quite. "Yeah, sure, he's gonna threaten to tell the cops that while he was killing his ex he was _supposed_ to be helping us with an insurance scam. Right."

"But you said there were no witnesses," Artie argued.

"I said he didn't_want_ any witnesses. But my manager was there, and she saw him. Christ, Artie, even _you_ can read the Post! And she got a couple pounds of his skin under her nails she gave to the cops so if they _do_ pick him up we are all three of us toast."

"Well I don't know what you expect _me_ to do about it. He didn't exactly leave me an address and cell phone number. Look, if he's getting high maybe he'll just forget about the whole thing and get on with his sleazy life." He could hear two muffled thumps. "What was that?"

Louie raised his forehead from his desk where he'd just pounded it. "That was my jaw dropping on the floor because you're so fucking stupid. But you're right about one thing, there's not a thing we can do about it. That's _we_, jerk, not _me_. Don't forget who set this whole thing up." Artie was starting to run his mouth again, but Louie heard the front door of the bar unlock and knew it must be Jenna and whoever was coming back from the funeral.

"Shit, I gotta go."

"I thought you were closed today."

"I am, but I set something up for after the funeral… as if that's gonna buy my way outta hell for all of this."

"What funeral?" Icy silence. "Oh. Right. Nice touch, cuz, they'd never suspect such a nice boss of being involved in any of this."

The human part of Louie suddenly shouldered his inner weasel aside, and he felt like he just might puke. "_Shut up_. I'll call later." He hung up the phone and rubbed his forehead again, realizing there weren't enough funerals in the world to help him buy his way out of hell for this. He took a deep breath as he went into the bar to greet the man whose only child he'd gotten killed.

Suddenly losing two bars to the bank didn't seem like such a big deal after all.


	5. Good news, bad news

"Hey Logan, call for you, says she's looking for 'Detective Mike'."

Mike took the phone from Profaci with a shrug. "Logan."

"Hi, this is Jenna."

"Hey Jenna, what can I do for you? How's Mr. Williams?" He was half afraid she was going to say Nicole's father was on his way to the precinct. In the week since the funeral Randy Walsh seemed to have evaporated. They tried to track down "James Dean" to get a little more detail on what he saw because if and when they picked up Walsh even the lamest P.D. could assure they'd need some corroboration to force a court order to get DNA to match to Merry's abundant samples. Hell, their only witness might as well have told them he _was_ James Dean; the name he gave them was just about as real.

"I convinced Nic's dad it would be better for him to go home, he was just making himself feel worse and more upset waiting around here."

_Thank you Jenna__!_, Mike shouted inwardly. "Smart advice. But you didn't have to call to tell me, Merry could've done that." He knew it had to be something else.

"I called to tell you I know where Randy is. One of the regulars saw him, can you believe he's squatting in an abandoned building just a couple blocks from here?" Before Mike could answer she continued hastily, "I'm not saying you guys should've known, I mean nobody ever knows what or who is hanging out in those places and I sure don't wanna go looking to find out."

"Relax, that's okay, hang on a minute," Mike motioned urgently with the phone to get Lennie's attention. "Hey, it's Jenna, from the bar. She says she knows where Randy Walsh is," he grabbed a pen and pad and sat down at his desk with a thump. "Okay, Jenna, gimme an address." The location was a long-condemned tenement used as a part-time crack house and a full time crash pad for druggies, drunks, and "wasted youth" in every sense of the word. "Great, great, we'll check it out. I don't suppose your regular knows when he might be around?"

"Not exactly, he goes there to get high in between purse snatches I guess."

Mike was grinning over at Lennie like he'd hit the Tri-State Power Ball. "Never mind Jenna, you did great. Give your regular a double on me."

Logan was about to say goodbye when Jenna added, "Listen, Mike, I haven't told Merry about this. I thought it would be better, well, to let you know first? The way she's been, you know, wound kinda tight and I didn't want her to go do something a little crazy. I wish I didn't feel like such a spy, it feels so wrong to keep stuff from her but I think it would be worse not to."

"You listen to me and take it from someone who knows just how 'a little crazy' she can get, you're a good friend, and you did the right thing. You're not spying, you're watching out for her. God knows I need all the help I can get right now. Talk to you later, and thanks again."

* * *

"Wound kinda tight", _that_ was a world-class understatement. Merry seemed to have segued from blaming herself to being consumed with a mania to nail Walsh. While Skoda couldn't share any details of their sessions he addressed Mike's concern by telling him it was all part of the process. Right. Let him say that at 2 a.m. when Merry had to be persuaded back to bed. She was pretty good at going through the motions of being reasonable and understanding the difficulties of the investigation, but he knew his wife much too well not to see the mental and emotional wrestling match going on under the surface. "Okay," she always told him, "I'm as okay as I can manage right now." He also knew better than to challenge that directly, lest the invisible door in her eyes should slam shut against him.

"Just stay tuned in, Mike," Skoda had advised him, "she'll let you know what she needs."

"You mean besides putting a bullet in Walsh? That need has come up more than once in casual conversation about his arrest. If there ever _is_ one." Mike knew he wasn't just being shined on with shrink talk, but it wasn't much comfort.

Skoda promised, "I'll make sure we cover that." What else could he say? "Look Mike, I know _you_ know we're kind of in the same position here. We both do jobs where instant gratification just isn't an option. But things are going in the right direction."

"Glad one of us can say that."

* * *

After getting the okay from Lt. Van Buren Logan and Briscoe found Walsh right where Jenna said he'd be.

"Randy Walsh," Logan announced as they burst into the debris-littered shit hole where their suspect was slumped on the remains of a stained and torn-up sofa.

"Well, well, Mr. Wonderful in his home sweet home," Lennie trilled as he pulled Randy to his feet.

"Wha's going on?" Drunker than the proverbial skunk, Randy had enough of his wits about him to be mightily relieved that his drug buddies – whatever their names had been – had shared their pipes as well as his stash, leaving no evidence behind. And as far as he knew there was no law against squatting under the influence.

Logan had finished scouting the nearest rooms. No sign of anyone else, and no sound of nervously shuffling feet or drugged-up mouth-breathing.

"Clear all around." He joined his partner where he held the pale, filthy, weasely-looking kid against the wall. This sickly looking skel beat a healthy woman to death? Logan had seen too much on the job for the question to linger in his mind for more than two seconds. He took a close look at Randy's face and hands.

"Little gouged up here, huh?" The scratches were nearly faded out, but even after nearly two weeks there were more than a few pink trails where Merry had left her mark.

"Fight with my girlfriend," Randy slurred.

"How about maybe a fight with my _wife_?"

The kid froze for a second. "Bullshit. I didn't fight with nobody."

"Contradicting himself already, what a guy," Briscoe told his partner. "Come on, genius, you're under arrest for possession of narcotics."

"I got no narcotics! Whaddaya mean?" Walsh protested, having sobered up quickly.

"Right here," Logan told him as he held up a nearly empty – but not nearly enough – glass vial he'd pulled from Walsh's pocket, "until the lab can prove otherwise. Guess your friends didn't remember to take all their toys with 'em."

* * *

"What the _hell_?" Merry was outraged, and puzzled that her husband could even consider the "statement" as minimally plausible.

"He said he was hired by Louie. We'll need another statement about the night of the attack, and what Louie might have said about why he wanted the bouncer away that night."

Jesus, when had either one of them taken the warning about the conflict of career versus personal life more seriously than now?

"You have to look at this logically." Mike couldn't believe he was saying it. "Do you think your boss had any reason to want Nicole dead?"

She felt like her head would explode. She felt like she was gonna throw up. After a few seconds of bug-eyed silence Merry shrilled into the phone, "_No! _ Are you crazy? Louie's our boss, for christsake, he _hired_ Nic, he lent her money when she was short. He's no saint but he'd never…" She shook her head firmly. "No. Randy's just spewing the first bullshit that comes into his cracked out head. He's _mental_, Mike, I saw him! What he did wasn't because of money. And Louie? Uh-uh, no way." End of conversation.

"Look, I'm gonna be late. We're gonna lean on Walsh for more details. There might be somebody can corroborate what he says about who paid him."

Merry glared at the phone. How could he _possibly_ find this crap story credible? "Good, be as late as it takes to find out you're being jerked around."

"Baby, you know we have to treat this for real," even as he spoke the words Logan knew they were falling on deaf ears.

"Don't 'baby' me, not now, okay? And FYI if you're waiting for corroboration of Randy's cracked-up fairy tale you're gonna be there forever and I am _not_ gonna wait up."

No response was safe, so Mike simply added, "I'll see you later. I love you."

"Well I guess George Carlin was wrong, the last words in every argument _aren't_ 'fuck you'."

All she could hear was Mike's quiet breathing on the other end of the phone, then Profaci's impatient voice, "Logan, Lennie says your perp is gonna ossify if you don't get in there."

"S_haddup_ I'm on my way," Mike yelled, but still didn't hang up or say anything more to Merry.

Waiting, she knew he was waiting for a sign she was okay. The red haze dissipated, and she sighed. "I'm sorry Mike. I'm sorry, it's just,"

"I know, babe. I'll see you later. _I love you_, and George Carlin can kiss my ass."

"Love you too. I know you're doing your job. You're doing good, you're just doing wrong. Bye."

_You did good, you just did wrong. _The same words she'd said to him and Max after they'd arrested her for murder, a million years ago. He only wished they were as true this time as they were then.

* * *

"So Mike, the Criminal Genius here is still swearing up and down this wasn't his idea. That the bar owner Louie Ashby put him up to it."

"_No_, for christsake that's not what I said. I said he hired me to break into the safe after they closed." Walsh was rapidly getting strung out; his goodbye present from Cousin Artie had gone exactly where Louie had predicted and had helped turn a hobby into a habit.

Mike exchanged a look with Lennie. "So you're saying killing the bartender was _your_ idea then?"

Looking like a cornered rat, Walsh came up out of his chair only to be slammed back into it by Logan. "_I didn't kill no bartender!"_ he insisted.

Mike put a hand to his ear as if listening to something far away. "You hear that Lennie?" Briscoe played his part, and shrugged, looking from his partner to Walsh.

"I dunno… Randy you hear anything?"

These guys are crazy, Walsh was thinking, and looked jumpily from one detective to the other, wishing he knew the right answer.

"I'll tell you what _I _hear," Logan informed them both, and leaned on the table until he was inches from Walsh's face. "I hear the echo of every dickless wonder who ever sat pissing his pants in that chair, crying like a little girl 'I didn't kill nobody' when we _all_ know you did!" He slammed both hands down on the table.

Though he jumped a mile, even strung out and stupid Walsh held his ground. All they had was a hunch or they wouldn't still be sitting here. "I'm telling you I didn't kill anybody. I went to the bar like I was supposed to, and that broad was emptying the trash so I took off. They were supposed to be closed already."

The sick and stupid thing was that was exactly how it was happening, up until he realized who "that broad" was, the bitch who walked out so he got evicted and had to jimmy safes for party money. Bitch. He must have said it out loud, because she'd turned around and seen him. The look of disgust on her face, that bitch, who did she think she was, and suddenly the 'job' was forgotten, and the only thing that interested him was beating that look off her face. He hadn't counted on Nic's boss coming wailing out of nowhere, but she didn't distract him for long and she didn't fight all that good. Oh she scratched him to shit and whacked him upside the head once or twice but he had the power in his veins so it didn't take much to slap her down, and finish doing the same to Nic. He only stopped when his fist started hurting and he was getting tired. So he left her where she was, he left both of them, and took off. He could have killed himself when he saw the Post the next day, that the _other_ bitch, that pain in the ass boss who helped turn Nic against him, was a cop's _wife_, for fuck's sake. He could have killed himself, but he didn't, he just called that Cousin Artie and scared the cheap suit off the guy so he'd pay him 500 bucks to leave town. He really was going to get a bus ticket with what was left over after he visited his party posse, but somehow there wasn't any left over and next thing he knew these two gorillas were on him. One of them the husband of the other bitch, for fuck's sake. Shit, he needed something, his head was dissolving.

"We got a witness says otherwise." Mike didn't bat an eye when Lennie shot him the "are you crazy" look.

Now it was Walsh who sat up straighter. "You got a witness, you got a dozen witnesses, bring 'em on. Anyway, you picked me up for possession, and I'm giving you an insurance scam." He was cracked out but not stupid. They'd have had him in a lineup already if they had something that solid and even if that other bitch did get a look at him, getting the crap pounded out of her might have either confused her brains or scared her out of fingering him. "And where's my P.D.?"

As if by magic Shambala Green appeared.

_Oh the fucking irony,_ Mike thought to himself.

Shambala scanned the wretched looking young man who sat at the table, then turned to the detectives. His obvious scars weren't recent, but as for anything else it was hard to tell.

"Gentlemen, I hope you've treated my client _politely_."

"More politely than he treated my wife, counselor." Mike didn't trust himself to say more, and left the interrogation room.

Lennie hadn't been around at the time, but he'd heard the stories of how Shambala Green and Ben Stone had tried to give Merry a break when she needed (and wouldn't take) one. He also knew Green did her job with a vengeance, no matter how low the life was she was defending. He supposed that was worth respecting, but now wasn't the time.

"Counselor," Briscoe eyed Walsh with undisguised disgust, "what you see before you is a product of lifestyle, not law enforcement. When you're through with him they'll take him to Riker's pending arraignment. I hear things are pretty backed up in night court."

"Well even if the search was good I hear you barely found enough 'evidence' to test, let alone convict. And as for murder... don't make me laugh. My client was taken advantage of by a crooked bar owner who wanted to defraud his insurance company, and he's offered to give evidence." She let the rest go before he could tell her to save it for court. Then Shambala told her client, "I'm afraid you'll be spending the night, Randy."

"Yeah," Briscoe drawled as he opened the door to leave. "Boo hoo."


End file.
